Dogma is the care for studying the truths of the Christian faith with the aim of offering it in a scientific way. Ecclesiastically, dogma is inseparable from the Church, for the Church is the one that explains and comments on the orthodox dogma.

The orthodox dogma is a dogma for life and fellowship with the Lord Christ, with His angels and His saints. It follows that if we seek to live a true spiritual life, we must have an Orthodox dogma. Orthodoxy believes in the Holy Trinity, in one nature of the person of the Lord Christ, out of two natures in a complete union, with one will. (Orthodoxy) believes in the mystery of the Eucharist through which we are united to the Lord’s body and blood, where He abides in us and we in Him. All of these are essential in shaping our spiritual life.

The blessed Syncletica, named after the heavenly assembly [synkletos) was from the land of the Macedonians. Her ancestors, having heard of the love of God and the love of Christ of the Alexandrians, went from Macedonia to lay hold of the city of the Macedonian (Alexandria). When they arrived at the place, they found the circumstances to be better than what they had heard said about the place. It was not that a large number of people pleased them, nor did they marvel at the greatness of the buildings; but finding there a single faith with pure love, they regarded this foreign settlement their second home.

His holiness Pope Tawadros II celebrated with us the 50th anniversary of the Coptic Church outside Egypt during his historical visit to Canada last year. His Holiness has called for a meeting in Egypt late in May to formulate a vision for the future of the Coptic church in the lands of immigration for the next fifty years. For reasons beyond my control I will not be able to attend this historical meeting, accordingly, I decided to publish my own vision for the church for those who are curious about the vision of a Copt who emigrated from Egypt in 1966 and during these years has experienced life as an immigrant single man, parent and grandparent and served in the immigrant church in various capacities as reader, subdeacon and priest.

Once again His Eminence Metropolitan Bishoy uses Al-Keraza to disseminate his own views that are at variance with what we received from the fathers of the church. In a recent Arabic article titled “الحلول الأقنومى” His Eminence pontificates:

As for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we prefer to refer to this as “descent of gifts” because he (the Holy Spirit) does not grant his essence to the apostles and the believers but rather his gifts and his graces.

Here I would like to ask His Eminence, Which of the fathers of the church taught this?

Your steadfastness in Christ fills me with admiration. Not only are you bearing well your present trial, with its attendant suffering; you are even living under rule and, so the bearer of your letter tells me, using the leisure necessitated by your recent illness to study the whole body of the Holy Scriptures and especially the Psalms. Of every one of those, he says, you are trying to grasp the inner force and sense. Splendid! I myself am devoted to the Psalms, as indeed to the whole Bible; and I once talked with a certain studious old man, who had bestowed much labour on the Psalter, and discoursed to me about it with great persuasiveness and charm, expressing himself clearly too, and holding a copy of it in his hand the while he spoke. So I am going to write down for you the things he said.

Evidence from the fourth century suggests that the Epiphany blessing of waters was celebrated in Antioch and Egypt. John Chrysostom, in his homily On the Baptism of Christ preached in Antioch in AD 387, testifies to the practice of drawing sanctified water:

For this is the day on which he was baptized and sanctified the nature of the waters. Therefore also on this solemnity in the middle of the night all who are gathered, having drawn the water, set the liquid aside in their houses and preserve it throughout the year, for today the waters are sanctified.

You who are without sense and in all things reckless, why do you not the rather cease your impertinent inquiries about the holy Trinity, and only believe that it exists ? You have the Apostle as your teacher for this, when he says: "It is necessary first to believe on God that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him." (Cf Heb 11) He did not say, "how he is," but only, "that he is".' But if they are not overwhelmed by this, let them say how the Father is, that so they may learn how his Word is. But it is absurd, they will say, to ask such questions about the Father. Let them hear, then, that it is also absurd to ask them concerning his Word.

Let those that minister aright be held worthy of double honour and especially those that labour in the word and teaching; (1 Tim: 17) because that they are not appointed of the bishops for (payment of) anything at all; wherefore they must needs be honoured with all godly honour, For when Moses served the altar worthily, God did grant unto his countenance a splendour greater than all. (Ex 33:9) And this did God make for a sign unto them that serve the altar aright in holiness, even as he. For he was the faithful presbyter, who laboured in the word and in doctrine and established the law for that obstinate people and bore their burden and their weeping and their irreverent murmuring wherewith they murmured against the Lord, and the curses that they uttered against Him. (Num 11:10) Yet was not all this a burden unto him because of the beauty of the altar whereof he was the minister and which was an image of the Word. Wherefore he was honoured more than any, in that he tasted of the sweetness of God ; he, the first that spake of the Church and gave unto her the form of the tabernacle, that by this fixed design the Church might be called to mind. For the tabernacle which followed him was an image of the Church. And not only did he make it, but he also set therein in order the ordinances of the sacred service, that he might teach us the fear of God that doth surround the altar, albeit we see it not. For he made bells round about the hem of the raiment of Aaron his brother, (Ex 28) that, when the chiefs at the holy place heard him enter the tabernacle, they might step aside, lest they should die. For every one that shall venture to approach the altar, without observing the law of God, shall die a wretched death, even as the sons of Eli, the priest of the Lord. For none that serveth the altar in impurity or with neglect shall die a good death.

I came to Canada in 1968 as an immigrant from Egypt. I was 30 years old and the church I came to was Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Toronto. The church was established by Father Marcos Marcos four years earlier in 1964. I graduated as a medical doctor from Ain Shams University in Egypt in 1962. I started working within two months after arriving as a resident in the Toronto Western Hospital.

At that time we were moving from one place of worship to another since we did not yet have a church of our own. The services at the church were totally in Arabic and Coptic. The deacons, afraid to lose the church tradition in a foreign land, made sure that every hymn in the book (and even some not in the book) was sung during the Liturgy. Accordingly the Liturgy ended at 1 pm!